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Date: Mon, 09 Jul 2001 20:37:18 -0500
From: "Marc A. Kunkel"
Subject: Re: solos

Man you need to stop drinkin coffee!
If all you do is thirty songs over and over then you SHOULD have your solos
down pat. When I get called into the studio
I'm given a chart (Nashville numbers chart) and listen to the song, play it
once, (fills etc.) then we pick it apart. The
solo is all improvised. I might play it several times and pick the best one
but I don't come in with a preconceived
notion. I never heard the song before. Neither did the other musicians. So
at least the country songs you hear on the
radio have improvised solos.
I don't tour but if I did I guess I'd have to learn what it was I did in the
studio.
When I play with songwriters in showcases etc. I still do some improvising.
I have certain things I hold on to but I still
like to explore the song.
Maybe I reject your premise because I don't do cover tunes, never have and
don't want to.
I won't play whammer jammer! I will play Stardust or Amazing Grace, but
see, those songs aren't signature harp tunes so I
can make them mine. As far as I'm concerned "Mystery Train" belongs to
Butter. (Now I guess somebody will correct me)
I guess whatever floats your boat.
Marc Kunkel
http://marckunkel.cjb.net

"To the latter, I'll just say; the best thing I ever did for my harp playing
was to take my 30 song program and try to nail every solo DOWN [I'm not done
yet]. How pretentious it would be of me to think anyone wants to hear me
~explore the variations~, if I CAN'T play most of my solos exactly the same
way every time if I WANTED to [There's very few folk I'm willing to sit and
watch do their homework on my dollar]. I improvise solos only when someone
sits in, when we're doing an unfamiliar request or when we are extending
songs for one reason or another. Period."